Game apparatus with cards played in alignment across a board



May 19, 1970 I w. H. T. M GAUGHEY, JR 3,512,779

GAME APPARATUS WITH CARDS PLAYED 1N ALIGNMENT ACROSS A BOARD Filed Nov.22. 1967 I I PIE 5 3 I I l I H ,2 /3 l4 l5 l7 /5 g l1 IT I N VEN'] UR.WILLIAM H- 7. MC 6.4066 5) J 9.

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Jrroxusrs United States Patent 3 512,779 GAME APPARATUS w1rn CARDSPLAYED IN ALIGNIVIENT ACROSS A BOARD William H. T. McGaughey, Jr., 461W. Maryland, St. Paul, Minn. 55117 Filed Nov. 22, 1967, Ser. No. 685,078Int. Cl. A6315 3/00 US. Cl. 273135 8 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Agame for two players each having a deck of fiftytwo cards including onecarrying the profile of each state and of the District of Columbia andone wild card representing the United States, the cards of each deckbeing visually distinguishable from those of the other deck. The playersselect one card at a time at random and play it face up on one of aplurality of contiguous zones laid out on a board in a rectangularpattern. Players attempt to line up cards from their own deck in apathway of adjacent cards. After the starting moves of the game, eachcard must be placed immediately adjacent another card of the sameplayer. The game ends when one player completes a continuous pathway ofadjacent cards from one side of the board to the other.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A game of the present invention utilizes a gameboard or other fiat surface on which is marked out a number of adjacentrectangles or similar zones. In the game as illustrated herein, thesezones are laid out in a rectangular pattern. Each player is providedwith a deck of cards, each card of each deck having a difierentidentifying indicia thereon to distinguish it from every other card inthat deck, but every card of each deck having a counterpart in the otherdeck. Each of the cards of each deck are distinguishable from the cardsof the other deck. In the game as shown, the identifying indicia are thename and profile of the fifty states of the Union and of the District ofColumbia, plus one additional card upon which a stylized representationof the US. Capitol is displayed along with the notation United States ofAmerica. Each of the cards for each of the states also carries thenumber of electoral votes accorded that state in presidential elections.This number can be used in scoring.

In the game as shown, the zones are rectangular in shape and arearranged in eight columns running in adjacent parallel lines on'the gameboard set between the two players and eight rows extending transverselyof the columns, thus to provide sixty-four zones in all.

A preferred method for starting the play includes having each playerarrange his cards in random and unknown order, with the playersalternately drawing one of their cards and placing it on the game board.As lOIlg as there is no other card in any of the four rows adjacent to aplayer, he may place one of his cards anywhere in anyof those rows.Alternatively, a player may place his card in a vacant space next toanother of his own cards, or may place his card on top of thecounterpart card of his opponent, which lies face up on the board.

The object ofthe game is to build a continuous linear and/or rectilinearchain of cards from one end of the game board to the other. A game endswhen either player first completes such a path. In a preferred form ofscoring, the player completing the path from one side of the board tothe other is awarded the sum of the points displayed on each of thecards in that path; for example, the number of electoral votesrepresented by the states illustrated by those cards. Additional gamescan be played and a set of such games will be worn by the player firstachieving a predetermined number of pomts, for example, 538 points (thetotal number of votes in the electoral college).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a game board of the present invention with someof the cards thereon as they might appear at the end of one game;

FIGS.'2 and 3 are plan views of parts of the decks of cards belonging tofirst and second players of the game, respectively.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRRED EMBODIMENT Referring to the drawings andthe numerals of reference thereon, a game board 10 has lines thereon todefine eight columns 11 through 18 and eight rows 21 through 28. Ofcourse other combinations of rows and columns could be utilized and, infact, the arrangement would not have to be rectangular in its entireconfiguration as long as most of the zones were adjacent to at leastthree other zones and every zone was adjacent to at least one otherzone. Obviously these zones could be designated by slots or dots, bycircles, or even by pegs or holes.

The players will arrange themselves with respect to the board so thatthe columns extend in parallel relationship between them and so that therows are transversely related to the columns. A first player will takeposition with respect to the board 10 at the top of the sheet where hecan handle the cards 31 as laid out in FIG. 2, and a second player willtake position with respect to the board 10 of FIG. 1 at the bottom ofthe sheet in position to utilize the cards 32 as disclosed in FIG. 3.

The cards 31 and 32 are parts of complete first and second decks ofcards, each of said decks being fifty-two in number, fifty of the cardseach carrying the profile of one of the fifty states of the union, thename of the state, and the number of electoral votes accorded that statein presidential elections. A fifty-first card of each deck carries theprofile of the District of Columbia and the legend District of Columbia,and a fifty-second card carries a stylized representation of the UnitedStates Capitol dome together with the legend United States of America.The capitals of each of the states and any other interesting informationabout a state (not shown) can conveniently be carried on that statescard. Each of said first and second decks of cards will be identicalexcept that each deck will be difierently colored or otherwise marked sothat any particular card can readily be distinguished as belonging toeither the first or second deck.

In FIGS. 2 and 3 are illustrated, however, not complete decks of cards,but those cards remaining when a number of cards of each deck have beenplayed on the game board.

The playing of a typical game will now be described.

Each player stacks his cards at random in an unknown order and inposition where one card can be selected by him at a time. The firstplayer selects the first card from his deck 31, and turns it up. He mayplace it anywhere in any of the rows 21 through 24. For this example, itwill be assumed that this first card was the one representing Vermont,and that he positioned it at row 21, column 16, as shown at 41 onFIG. 1. a

The second player selected the first card in his deck, which wasOklahoma, and he chose to position it at column 14, row 27, as at 42.The second card of the first player was the one representing Minnesota,and he placed it at column 14, row 22, see 43, and the second card ofthe second player was Tennessee and was placed at column 15, row 26, see44. Subsequent cards were drawn and placed on the game board by eachplayer alternately in accordance with the following plan:

(1) The first card in any of the first four rows immediately adjacent toa player can be placed anywhere in that row,

(2) Any card can be placed in a vacant zone immediately adjacent anothercard belonging to the same player if it is placed in the same row orcolumn as that card,

(3) Any card can be placed on top of the counterpart card of the otherplayer, and

(4) The card marked United States of America is a wild card, and can beused as the equivalent of any other card in the deck. When this cardcomes to hand, the player can place it on top of any card of hisopponent which is on the board. For scoring, its numerical Value is thesame as that of the card underneath it.

The typical game of the illustration has been continued, and thearrangement of the cards as seen at the end of this game is illustratedin FIG. 1. Note that in the course of the game, the first player hasplaced his wild card on top of one of the other cards of the secondplayer at column 15, row 25. (For example, over Connecticut, which has 8electoral votes.)

The first player has, as shown, won the first game because he has thecontinuous pathway of cards extending from his edge of game board 10 tohis opponents edge of the game board opposite.

A preferred means of scoring this game is to award this first playerpoints in accordance with the number of electoral votes accorded thesestates making up his continuous path. Thus his score for the gameillustrated would be as follows:

North Dakota 4 Minnesota 10 Iowa 9 Wisconsin 12 Indiana 13 United Statesof America 8 District of Columbia 3 West Virginia 7 Alabama 10Mississippi 7 Louisiana 10 Thus the score for the first player in thisgame would be 93 points. Other games would be played in succession untila predetermined number of points was reached by one or the other of theplayers. A total of 538 points is a preferred number to determine a setwinner inasmuch as this is the total number of points which each playerhas in his deck and is the total number of elector-a1 votes accorded thevarious states in a presidential election.

With sixty-four zones and fifty-two cards in each deck, a situation cansometimes be arrived at where one player cannot make a further move. Inthis situation, the other player is awarded a predetermined number ofpoints (fifty-two points toward the total 538, for example).

It is to be understood that other indicia could be used to identify thevarious cards of each deck as long as each identifying indicia of eachcard in a deck finds a counterpart in one card in the other deck. Thusdifferent numbers could be used, or the countries or rivers of theworld, teams in a particular sports league, for example, all of theteams in the American and National Football Leagues;

and information relating to those units could be displayed on the cards.By repeatedly playing the game, the information on the cards will beeasily and painlessly assimilated by the players. By utilizing empiricalnumerical representations of factors such as electrol votes or lengthsof rivers or state populations, for example, the importance of the unitrepresented by the card with respect to the empirical value will also beassimilated and recognized.

I claim:

1. A game apparatus for use by at least two players comprising:

a game board having a plurality of identifiable adjacent blank zonesdesignated thereon arranged side-by-side in rows and end-to-end incolumns, said columns extended from one players side of the board to theopposite players side of the board;

at least two decks of the same predetermined number of cards, one deckfor each of said players, each card of each deck having a differentidentifying indicia thereon to distinguish it from every other card ofthat deck, but every card of each deck having a counterpart in the otherdeck, each of the cards of each deck being visually distinguishable fromthe cards of the other deck, and each card being of size and shape tofit with each of the zones on said board.

2. The combination as specified in claim 1 wherein one card of each deckis identified with one of the United States.

3. The combination as specified in claim 2 wherein one card of each deckis identified with the District of C0lumbia and another card of eachdeck bears indicia enabling it to be used as a Wild card.

4. The combination as specified in claim 3 wherein each card isidentified with a different political unit and is marked with anumerical representation of an attribute of the political unit withwhich it is identified.

5. The combination as specified in claim 4 wherein the attribute is thenumber of electoral votes accorded the political unit duringpresidential elections.

6. The game apparatus of claim 1 wherein each column has 8 zones, eachrow has 8 zones and each deck of cards has at least 50 cards.

7. The game apparatus of claim 6 wherein the indicia on each card is anoutline of the geographical boundary of a state of the United States,each card of the same deck of cards having a boundary of a diiferentstate.

8. The game apparatus of claim 1 wherein the indicia on the cardscomprise words.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 320,091 6/1885 Ram 273 471,6663/1892 Doty 273-130 678,824 7/ 1901 Carney 273-130 800,941 10/ 1905Ragsdale 273--130 1,201,100 10/1916 Rice-Wray 273- 1,571,488 2/ 1926Moisan et al 273135 2,726,087 12/1955 Dunham 273-130 3,075,771 1/1963Dodge 1 273130 3,309,092 3/ 1967 Hardesty et al 273-135 X FOREIGNPATENTS 654,098 12/ 1962 Canada.

DELBERT B. LOWE, Primary Examiner

